The Looking Glass
by At A Venture
Summary: The world has ended and only one Slayer knows why.
1. Chapter 1

**_The Looking Glass_**

(Notes: All flashbacks will appear in _italic_ text to avoid confusion with the present-tense plot.)

**Chapter 1**

Smoke wafted up from a pair of flames licking the hollow remnants of an old shop window. Chunks of broken cement littered the street in front of a decaying apartment building. Power lines hung uselessly from splintered poles lurching askew. Buffy Summers walked slowly down the brittle asphalt, her eyes bent toward the road to avoid gaping potholes. Gurgling sulfuric water lingered in a shallow pool near the cracked sidewalk, fed by a busted pipe leaking waste into the street. A few feet ahead, a traffic light swung precariously from a few strands of peeling wire. Beneath it, an abandoned sedan sat crumpled around the cracked base of a street light. A driver in a navy blue suit sat tucked into his seat, a safety belt lashed around his chest. Thick ropes of dried blood seeped into his coat, darkening the color of his collar. His head lolled to one side, partially torn from his neck.

Buffy shook her head as she turned down another street, fingering the wooden stake that protruded from the hip pocket of her soot and blood-stained blue jeans. The knees of her pants had been torn out, and beneath the folded fabric, her flesh was scraped and scabbed. A buttoned shirt hung loosely around her waist, soaked through in places by dingy brown sweat and day old rust-colored blood. Streaks of blond hair appeared tarnished and blackened, as though she'd stood downwind of a firestorm. Soot covered her face, collecting around her ears, nose, and mouth. Once clear green eyes now appeared bloodshot and red. Around the left eye, she wore a fresh, crimson cut. On her chin, another deeper laceration had begun to scab over. Buffy walked to the end of the street on slightly trembling legs, her hand reaching out to steady herself against a disembodied wall. The knuckles of her hands were covered in cuts and scrapes, many of them oozing pus and blood. Her fingernails were blackened with ash and soot. Buffy grasped the stake from her pocket and held it out in front of her body. The street lay dormant, empty.

Exhaling a withered breath, the slayer continued down the street. Unlike the last two roads, this one was backed up with several hundred feet of bumper to bumper traffic. The cars sat rusting in perfect rows, like the eroding tombs in a graveyard. Sighing, Buffy turned her eyes away from the lifeless bodies of evacuees, and toward the yawning doors of an abandoned grocery. On either side of the store, buildings had been hollowed out, leaving only the shells of sooty walls. The windows of the grocery had been kicked in, leaving shards of glass littering the sidewalks and the peeling linoleum inside. Crunching over the mess, Buffy moved cautiously inside, turning her head to the left and then the right, watching for movement. Fluorescent lights hung overhead, though the lights had been turned off long ago. Buffy walked slowly down the aisles, grabbing picked over canned goods from the shelves. An orange pop-tent sat ominously in the midst of the canned meat aisle. Buffy had seen this kind of thing before; people hiding out in intact buildings, cowering as the world fell down around them. Still, she hadn't seen a single living person in several weeks.

Buffy tossed a dried peach up in the air and caught it. Rolling back her arm, she threw the fruit down the aisle, directly into the nylon wall of the tent. It wobbled soundlessly and dropped the fruit upon the floor.

"Second time's the charm," she muttered under her breath, grabbing a bottle of spaghetti sauce from the shelf on her right. The jar went flying through the air and crashed loudly against the tent and onto the floor, spraying sauce in every direction. The thick odor of past-its-prime tomato sauce filled the aisle. Still, the tent's contents did not move. Buffy retrieved the armful of 

groceries she'd collected and stepped over the mess, selecting a can of pea soup from a shelf. The stiff odor of decaying corpse snuffed out the soupy tomato mess as the slayer moved back to the exit. At the end of the aisle, Buffy moved to the register to throw her items into a bag. There on the counter-top, left alone, forgotten by the last patron, sat a perfectly yummy, hauntingly delicious, never-goes-bad milk chocolate bar. A hint of a smile turned the corners of the slayer's lips. Snatching the candy up, she dropped everything into a bag and walked back out into the afternoon.

A thick haze settled over the city, choking out the majority of sunlight, leaving Buffy's eyes itchy and watery. Past the shops and offices of the sleepy town, Buffy walked quickly past a row of rotting apartment buildings. Piles of rubble filled several lots strung together. Behind her shoulders, the brownish yellow haze of day colored with the pink clouds of dusk. The slayer stumbled up a set of collapsing cement stairs, and shoved her shoulder into a heavy door. The lock gave way and she burst inside, climbing up several flights of stairs, past floors full of rubble and cement dust. The sky purpled like a bruise, blotting out the last rays of day. On the eighth floor, Buffy threw her boot against the door of apartment 808 and fell inside.

Cans of soup banged against one another as the grocery bag flopped onto the floor by the door. Buffy lifted the stake against her chest, the tight clenching of her fist opening healing wounds. Pressing her shoulders back against a firm wall, Buffy moved slowly through the apartment, touching every room, peering into every hallway. Hazy purple and pink dusk stretched through curtained windows, providing just enough light to give every room a twice-over search. Satisfied that the apartment remained empty, Buffy scrounged in the kitchen drawers and found an old scented candle and a pack of matches. It was her lucky day.

Buffy dipped the spoon a third time into the can of soup, and then shoveled another bite past her gag reflex. Her stomach rumbled angrily. The soup was slightly off, tasting vaguely of peas swimming in vomit. Beside her, a small battery-powered radio sat in the beam of candlelight. The volume had been turned down, and the sound of white noise filled the room. Buffy pushed aside the can of soup, still more than half-full and pungent. She unwrapped the chocolate bar and pressed a chunk of candy into her mouth. The pleasant reminder of sugar made her mouth water.

Outside, the sun had finally been erased from the sky, the last waves of violet dusk replaced by the encroaching darkness of nightfall. Buffy lurched to her feet and moved to the window, staring out over the vacant city. Dipping a hand into her back pocket, she pulled out a wad of folded photographs, creased with love and time. Xander and Dawn stared up into her sunken, shadowed eyes, their arms wrapped happily around one another. Joyce Summers looked up from a crate of pieces for the gallery. Willow, Giles, Dawn, Xander, and Spike sat over a table of dusty books, researching the next Big Bad. Buffy lifted the last photo up to the light of the candle, tilting it to see the image. She stood in a glittering room, her head pressed peacefully against Angel's shoulder. The world had seemed so terrible then, fate too harsh to endure. Buffy pressed the photograph against her heart and stared down into the night. Eight stories below, the city roared and rumbled, coming alive with the sounds of demons trawling through the dissolving streets.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Looking Glass**

**Chapter 2**

Smoke curled in fine tendrils from the charred wick of the melting candle. The heady scent of rose petals and moth balls smothered the empty kitchen and seeped into the adjoining rooms. Tucking the last piece of chocolate between her lips, Buffy carefully folded the tattered photos of her loved ones and shoved them into the drooping pocket of her jeans. The rickety plastic dinner table wobbled as she retrieved the stake, pulling it once again to her chest, battle-ready. Moving quickly to the exit, Buffy threw open the door, ran back down the dusty carpeted hall, and ran down the eight flights of stairs. Yowls from outside penetrated the empty stairwell, echoing from every floor's smashed windows and busted walls. The slayer's heart thumped despairingly in her chest, beating at the bones of her ribcage. Panting, Buffy dropped down onto the first floor and slithered against the wall to the front door. The hinges screamed as she pushed the door open, creeping noiselessly out into the deafening night.

The alley between the apartment building and the mangled shell of an office building offered brief refuge from the streets swollen with demons. Some ambled slowly between the abandoned cars, sticking up their noses at the maggoty bodies housed inside. Others, scavengers, ripped open doors and squealed or roared or yowled with delight at the fleshy cream filling. A few human-looking creatures with eerily translucent flesh stuck to the sidewalks, clearing out a path among their demonic brethren. Unlike the others, they walked with heads high, strange white eyes pointed forward, long clawed hands hanging nonchalant at their sides.

She spotted her first victim lingering beneath an unlit streetlight. It stared down at an empty car, wobbling from one foot to the other, as though unsure of what to do with itself. The creature had dark crimson skin that sagged from his joints, and at least two rows of shining teeth glinted in the hazy moonlight. In one mangled claw, the insecure demon carried a well-worn battle axe, dented and dinged from negligence. Buffy darted swiftly from the alley, racing through a gaping hole in the demonic pilgrimage, wrapping both arms around her opponent. Eyes slowly fell on her as though she were hardly worth their time. The attacked menace squealed loudly, lifting it's weapon. The axe sliced through the thick polluted air, flinging fiberglass as it made contact with the battered windshield of the empty vehicle. Buffy twisted out of the way, shoving the heel of her boot into the demon's face, removing seven or eight broken teeth. It's voice pierced the otherwise sleepy night, and the axe fell pathetically from it's contorted hand. The slayer grinned briefly in triumph, retrieved the weapon, and thrust it viciously through the throat of her enemy, severing the head from the body. The axe clanged to the ground as Buffy dropped the weapon and ran back into the shadows. The eyes turned slowly back to the route. The demon hordes moved on.

Shoving her stake into her carryall pocket, Buffy shimmied up the rungs of a rusted escape ladder. Avoiding the gaping hole in the roof of the building, the slayer crawled out across the five inch wide brick barrier that enclosed most of the sunken hole. A few stories beneath her, among the exodus of demons, a large and less than stealthy creature shoved his fist angrily through the door of a car. The vehicle rose into the air, stuck to the demon's thick wrist. It's roaring voice echoed into the night, like a bull on steroids. The slayer smirked, avoiding the scene of two bodies flopping onto the sidewalk, one piled atop the other. Slinking along the precarious wall, Buffy moved back to the fire escape and climbed down to the alley once again. Pulling the stake from her pocket, Buffy dragged it along the brick wall, making a scraping noise that echoed through the alley and out into the street. The bull horned demon lifted it's ugly head, 

wiping a massive arm over its snout nose and mouth. Buffy kicked at dirt on the ground, banged her fist bluntly against the wall, scraped the wooden stake against the rungs of the steel ladder.

"Here kitty kitty," she breathed.

Two heavy horns burst into the alley, followed by a swollen head and clunking body. Buffy perched overhead, clinging to the rungs of the ladder a few feet up the wall. The demon expelled a breath, the odor like rotting skin and week old socks. Buffy dropped down from the ladder, throwing both feet powerfully into the massive horned cranium. It scowled and grunted, shaking off the pain as Buffy dropped onto the sooty ground. Her fists thrust out, slamming horribly into the steel-like shins of the demon. It wobbled slightly as Buffy pulled her burning hands back. A leg slammed heavily into her gut, throwing the slayer across the alley and into a pile of ashy rubble. The creature waddled toward her, moving in for the crushing blow. Buffy picked up a brick and chucked it, hitting the demon straight between the eyes. A grunt, a roar, and it continued toward her like a steam engine. Buffy struggled to her feet and ran forward, wrapping her hands around the thick horns on it's head. The horn fell away under the weight of her body dangling from his head, and he crumbled, pathetically, to the ground.

Buffy leaned heavily against the building's brick wall, choking on her uneven breath. Streams of grey, ashen sweat rolled down the sides of her face, the curve of her shoulders, the musculature of her arms. She coughed into her dirty hand, spitting up blood from a cut inside her mouth. Beyond the sanctuary of the alley, the nightly squeals of demon gangs filled the air. Grudgingly, Buffy lifted her weapon and resumed her watch, gazing on the easier prey. She found him slithering along the street, a demon without a horde. Though she couldn't remember the name of the species, she was certain she'd seen the creature before. It looked not unlike a slug, covered with a thick, greasy green hide. Turning to look each way, Buffy scrambled back out into the broken street, winding her arm back to throw a left hook into the neck-region of the demon.

Out of the shadows and into the slivers of hazy moonlight, a cackling demon slid into view, positioning himself between the slayer and her prey. Buffy dropped her fist pathetically, letting it swing alongside her hip. Smooth grayish skin protruded from the collar and cuffs of a clean white shirt, covering sinewy musculature and wrinkled blue veins. Black irises sat in almond-shaped eye sockets, staring out at her, laughing. The thing smiled, revealing a set of razor sharp, two-pronged teeth, the teeth of a vampire. The breath on his tongue was rancid, a mixture of rusty-scented blood and the flesh of a moldy corpse. The slayer fell back, falling against the blunt chests of two more vampires standing behind her, grinning like hyenas.

"Go on," the first laughed, standing aside to reveal a slightly confused slug demon. "Fight. Kill. Slay." Behind her, the others burst into maniacal laughter, clutching the shoulders of their companions for support.

"You're the slayer, aren't you? Go on then," he continued, chuckling with a hoarse voice while his gang convulsed with fits of giggles.

"What," Buffy smirked, though her voice wobbled fearfully. "Afraid to face me yourself?"

"Afraid?" He snorted, lifting his eyebrows. "Of you? I eat girls like you for breakfast."

Buffy drew up the stake, forgetting the shaking of her knees. The vampire hissed, baring his fangs in an impressively foul sneer. The slayer's boot flew out in a side kick, slamming into the hip of her foe. He chuckled, throwing both hands out to stop her in the act. Thick polluted air flew around her ears, rushing over her flared nostrils as Buffy slammed brutally into a sturdy cement wall. The gang jeered in the midst of the demon-filled streets. The slayer stumbled to her feet, steadying herself against the wall. Cement chipped away in her fingers, turning to dust.

"That it, slayer? One kick and you're out?" He was upon her, shoving her back into the building, his sickly gray hand wrapped tightly around her neck. "I thought I got three strikes?"

The slayer squirmed in his strangely tight grasp, grunting as she wiggled her leg free. The knee shoved mercilessly against the vampire's crotch, striking him with a slight amount of force. His yowl of pain echoed down the alley and he was on her again, grabbing her by the wrist she'd prepared to execute a punch. Again the slayer flew like a rock, head over heels, until she slammed through a less than sturdy brick wall at the end of the alley.

"Should be tenderized now," he smirked from a distance as Buffy shook brick dust from her hair. She crawled up the pile of rubble until she managed to stand. The voices of her foes drifted down the street, getting louder. "I think we'll have a real meal tonight. Heart beating, blood thumping. My mouth is watering just thinking about it." With every ounce of strength left in her, Buffy alternating limping and running, abandoning the hunt for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

(All flashbacks are written in _italics_ to avoid confusion.)

**The Looking Glass**

Chapter 3

Bending over double, Buffy wrapped her bruised and beaten arms around her stomach. The floor wobbled beneath her half-open eyes. Blood welled beneath her tongue, sliding out over her lower lip. With effort, she spit, splashing a puddle of saliva and blood onto the dirty steps. Breaths staggered out of her lungs. From the hunt, she'd run through a series of alleyways to throw off her attackers. Finally, after seventeen blocks out of her way, they'd fallen back to feast on other things. The slayer then stumbled back to the eighth floor apartment, stopping to rest at the top of the stairs. After several minutes of nausea and hard, ragged breath, Buffy stumbled down the hall and shoved her shoulder against the door, pushing it open. The sofa she'd used to stop up the door sat in the same place she'd left it. The candle on the table had just enough wick and wax left to perform one last duty before bed. The slayer struck a match and carried the candle with her into the bath room.

In the shadows, the mildewed avocado tiles were noticeable only by their damp, dingy smell. The candle flickered with the movement of a slight draft. Buffy bent down over the faucet and turned on the water, as high as each handle could go. At first, nothing happened. The plumbing remained silent. The slayer slumped onto the toilet seat, reaching scraped arms out to untie the laces of her boots. Beside her, the pipes began to bang, scooping up water from the bowels of the city. The boots came off slowly, heaping dust and dirt onto the beige floor. The socks peeled from her feet like the skin of an onion. Several days of sweat mixed with bacterial infection and blood, an odor that filled the small room. Buffy stared miserably at the oozing blisters and scabs that covered her feet.

Finally, the faucet belched, forcing an inch of murky, muddy water into the basin of the tub. Buffy lurched over the room, banging her knees into the porcelain wall as she shoved the stopper into the drain. The pipes banged again, once, twice, and fell silent.

"Now where's the rubber duckie?" Buffy grimaced as she returned to her feet and unbuttoned the jeans she'd been wearing for two weeks straight. Dust and blood caked most of the material, making the cloth fit snuggly against her thinning frame. They barely crumpled as she threw them on the pile with her socks and shoes. Chips of paint and concrete stuck to the shredded skin around a freshly scraped knee. A deep scratch on her calf had scabbed over and begun to heal, though it was only a day old. There were blood and dirt stains on the hole-filled cotton panties she pulled down around her ankles and kicked away. A streak of pus and blood shone on the floor.

She sat carefully on the edge of the tub and sank her feet into the cold filth that had emerged from the pipes. Stirring up the water with her toes, it splashed over her ankles, leaving a grayish stain in the place of an open wound. As her feet soaked, Buffy raised her arms over her head and slid out of the shirt she'd worn since the battle. It had once smelled of work and commitment, of the girls ready to fight to the death, of triumph and success. Now, it smelled only of blood and decay, and it fell on the top of the laundry pile. The flame wavered from its perch on the kitchen sink, illuminating the milky pink scar that stretched from her shoulder to her opposite hip. Above the shoulder, the two prong scar of a vampire bite glistened as a reminder of the past. Buffy slid down off the edge of the basin and immersed herself in the water, splashing the sludge against her bruised arms, the scrapes on her legs, and the dust in her hair.

The candle had gone out by the time Buffy emerged from the tub, her arms tucked around her breasts to hide her nakedness from the empty apartment. Her once shiny, wavy golden hair hung loose and damp around her shoulders, matted and knotted from lack of a comb. A thin film of soap lingered on some parts of her skin, unnoticed in the darkness. Still, much of the blood she'd expelled that night had been washed down the drain, leaving her as clean as she could be.

Buffy sighed and wandered into the bedroom, stepping cautiously over the dirty brown shag carpeting that lined every room except the bath. The bed, though stripped of everything but a worn rag blanket, looked incredibly comfortable beneath a single window. Already she could see the sky filling with the soft hue of dawn. Tearing her eyes away, Buffy dug into the drawers in search of new clothing. It seemed as though the evacuees had had more room for blankets and sheets than unseasonal clothing. It was as though they'd thought pants and long sleeves wouldn't be useful wherever they were going. She shrugged and pulled out a new-to-her pair of denim jeans two sizes too large, a pair of ragged cotton panties a size too small, and a soft black turtleneck sweater that fit wonderfully except in the arms, which were too long.

Dressed, the bed called to her, pulling her toward the stained mattress and old blanket. Carefully removing the photographs from her old pants, Buffy fell onto the creaking mattress and scrambled up toward the wall that served as a headboard. Snuggling under the abandoned blanket, she set out each photograph like a playing card on a solitaire board.

_Her ankles wound around the legs of the kitchen stool as Willow leaned over a dusty volume written in a demonic tongue. The script looked curiously like a child's drawing, a manuscript of sideways hearts and off center stars. Across the counter, Giles bent over a yellow notepad, scribbling notes in a furious hand. Sun filtered in through the large bay window, casting a perfect yellow glaze on the assembled Scooby team. _

"_It's totally not a thing. We'll definitely figure it out. I mean, you could always mix them together." Dawn shrugged, scooping a spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth. She'd worn pink sheep pajamas that day, betraying the fact that she'd recently turned eighteen. _

"_Mix…what? Mix the Fyaral and the Vampiric myths together?" Willow stammered, looking up from her translation. _

"_No, she meant mix the Cheerios with the Fruit Loops. I'm having a tough time deciding." Xander smirked, setting down a cereal box and picking up another. Dawn wiggled across the kitchen counter and peered over his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek briefly against his. Their eyes closed in sync, and opened again. Xander tossed a cup of cereal into his bowl. _

"_Getting back to the translation…" Giles growled, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. _

"_So, what you're saying is that we don't know anything," Buffy frowned as she leaned over Willow's shoulder. _

"_It's really no big. We'll figure it out like we always do. It's not like it's the end of the world right?"_

"_Please tell me you're talking about the Big Bad now, Dawnie," Willow sighed. _

"_What? Oh yeah. I am! I mean, look, there's never been anything we couldn't handle right? And besides, we have like 300 slayers now. Whatever it is, we'll deal."_

"_There's definitely deal-age." Xander added. _

"_Right. You're right. Everything will be fine."_

Shoving the photos back into a pile, Buffy slid the bundle into her pocket and lifted the stake from its position beside her hand. Beyond the window, warm rays of hazy sunlight burst into the new day. The mewling, yowling sound of demons had quieted. The exodus had ceased for another long day of quiet. The slayer yawned and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. The bed squeaked as she rolled off the side. Digging into the drawer she'd left open, Buffy pulled out a new pair of socks. Her stomach rumbled uneasily as she slid her feet into her boots. Beyond the apartment, day 43 called out to her. The banister shook as Buffy ran down the stairs.

The commercial district taped off as Buffy walked toward the edge of another city. The last of the shops had fallen to looting first and decay second. Shards of glass covered the ground in half-circles. The displays had been emptied, the shelves turned over, and most of the goods scooped up for use elsewhere. A shotgun sat in an empty store window. The counter tops were covered in spattered blood. Still, there were no bodies. There were rarely any bodies anymore.

To her left, the streets were clogged with cars. This far out from the center of town, a few drivers still remained trapped in their cars, many of them infested with scavengers. Buffy pulled the edge of her turtleneck over her nose and mouth and dipped into the sea of vehicles, squirming through the inches of space existing between them. From the ground, it was difficult to find anything useful in a sea of collisions. Buffy leapt up atop the hood of a yellow Cadillac, walking casually from one car to the other. A hand poked out of the window of one car, covered in boils from rotting in the sun. On the edge of the road, she found it. A small Geo sat empty, evacuated or excavated, it didn't matter which. The keys still sat in the ignition.

The engine puttered pathetically, guiding the slayer off the crowded road and onto the parched brown earth that lined the highway. Grunting in complaint, the vehicle stumbled over rocks and through tumble weeds, dragging Buffy past a warped green road sign with dingy white letters. She leaned out of the window and released a grin from the depths of her consciousness. The sign caught a sliver of real, unpolluted sunlight, making the letters shine with blinding brightness. Buffy shoved her foot against the gas and sped up to a meager twenty-five miles an hour. The sign, reading _Los Angeles: 100 miles_ stretched proudly over the highway, shielding the vehicular graves from the sun.


	4. Chapter 4

(All flashbacks are written in _italics_ to avoid confusion.)

**The Looking Glass**

**Chapter 4**

"And what is he going to say when you show up on his doorstep, assuming you can even find it?"

"Duh, he's going to tell me he's been worried about me, waiting to hear from me."

"He's going to blame you. This is all your fault."

"We did everything we could!"

"It wasn't enough! Obviously it wasn't. Look around, slayer; this is the world you've created. I fucked up. I really fucked up."

"Look, stop, this isn't getting me anywhere. Turn on the radio."

White noise streamed over the airwaves, filling the Geo as it grunted alongside the highway, spitting petroleum fumes into the heavy afternoon atmosphere. The city rose up out of the haze, trapped in the center of a labyrinth of freeway off ramps choked with congestion. You'd never know it wasn't a typical day in Los Angeles but for the eerie silence hanging over the metropolis like a curtain. The Geo wheezed as Buffy rumbled within the limits of downtown, gasping alongside the darkened windows of a Chinese takeaway. The engine coughed loudly, expelling fumes from every orifice. Thick smoke spilled from the air vents, filling the car. Buffy gagged, slamming on the breaks. More fumes, sooty and sickening, slid out from the undercarriage, consuming the vehicle. The door fell open after three forceful kicks to the rusted door, and the slayer fell out onto the street. Free of its passenger, the car garbled a final groan, lurched upon its shocks, and died where it sat.

"Great," Buffy sighed, dusting pebbles of asphalt from her elbows as she jabbed the front wheel with her shoe. "Where's AAA when I need them?"

Overhead, between the tops of skyscrapers, the midday sun scattered rays of light between choking clouds of haze. Buffy sighed and left the automobile in peace, her boots scraping the cracked street as she walked through the bad part of town. Los Angeles looked the same as every other town she'd walked or rode through in the past forty-four days. The roads were busted and bumpy, some with cracks driven through to make driving nearly impossible. Stubborn grasses had retaken the sidewalks, pushing away blocks of cement to reach for the sky that couldn't be seen. Some of the overpasses had managed to survive, but others had crumbled like a broken cracker, leaving the warped remains of cars and trucks thrown in heaps several feet beneath. Many of the buildings and shops were gutted. Smoke still rose in lazy drafts from the shells of gas stations. The city, the largest city on the coast, was in shambles.

Playground equipment sat rusting in a small park among the rotting townhouses of a housing project. A couple of swings moved slightly in a dusty breeze. A brown station wagon lurched along the sidewalk, parked illegally alongside a yellow fire hydrant. A parking ticket curled and browned on the windshield. Buffy allowed a small smile to crackle over her chapped lips. She crunched across the dunes of gravel and sand, and fell into the rubber seat of a swing. The chains squeaked as they adjusted to her weight upon the frame. In the sand beneath her feet, glinting in the grey daylight, a necklace had been half-buried. The slayer bent down over her knees, lifting the edge of her sweater up around her back. The bones of her ribs and the vertebrae of her spine poked unattractively from her scraped, raw, pale skin.

Gold plated chain hung loosely around her knuckles as Buffy lifted the charm toward her face. The metal was scratched and slightly warped. The chain had been scuffed, and the stainless steel links clashed strangely against the gold.

"_You know, you stole Mr. Gordo from my room when I was a baby," Dawn smirked, picking up the pink stuffed pink. She held it delicately against her chest, rubbing the worn fur of his ears. "Dad brought him home from the hospital with me. There are pictures. I totally have proof."She paused, looking down at the carpeted floor, the tops of her shoes. "Isn't it funny that there are pictures; that we remember? I mean, it didn't even happen."_

_Buffy lifted her eyes from the duffel bag she'd been packing on the bed. Weapons sat out in piles. Shirts and pants had been stacked up, to take or not to take. Her eyes fell first on Mr. Gordo, tucked protectively into Dawn's hands. Her eyes glittered, filled with fear. _

"_I'm coming back. How many times have we saved the world? How many times have we dealt with this kind of thing and bounced right back, no big? Heck, I've died twice. I think I can take it."_

"_Well, if you die, I get your room."_

"_You have a room! You share it with your boyfriend, and don't think I don't know."_

"_Your room is way bigger. I could give him, like, a piece of closet space, instead of just a drawer!"_

"_Doesn't matter anyway because I'm not going to die. There are three hundred slayers in this battle, and nothing's been able to beat us yet."_

"_Well, I'm holding Mr. Gordo as collateral."_

The necklace curled up gently in her pocket as Buffy slid back out of the swing and onto the sand. Overhead, a dark brown cloud drifted over the straining sun, pushing a wave of dirty darkness over the city. The latch of the station wagon broke away easily, and the keys had been stowed between the visor and the ceiling. A plastic blue dolphin charm hung from the mirror, dancing back and forth as Buffy put the car into gear. The day had begun to fade and she still had no idea how far she had to go.

A watery crimson reflection began to smudge out the brownish hue as dusk came upon Los Angeles. For hours, Buffy had twisted and turned down empty streets, her fingers smudging soot and dirt along the printed pages of a five year old Thomas Guide. The soft undertones of yowling had already begun, a chorus of demons that would rise up like Handel's Messiah in less than an hour. Buffy steered down another street, past the brutally beaten homes that made up the far south end of Los Angeles. Her fingers clenched the wheel, whitening the knuckles, stretching the tight skin around large, rough scabs. A gas station lurched into view, surprisingly intact on every side. The slayer drove past six blocks and scrambled out of the car. The noise of nighttime rose as the sun dipped farther toward the sea.

Curling her arm against her chest, her stake at the ready, Buffy scrambled loudly inside the snack shop. Piles of potato chips and dusty cookies sat untouched in the aisles. Heavy aluminum doors had been rolled down over the front windows. A paint can sat on the floor, the ivory white paint dried out and sticking to the sides of the can. The slayer tiptoed past a ladder put up for painting a crack in the ceiling, and applied force to the doorknob leading to the room behind the fridge. Palates of water and fruit juice sat in piles near the door. A solitaire game had been left out, half-finished, on a card table with one lonely chair. The store was empty.

Outside, beyond the concrete walls of the gas station, the nightlife had gone into full swing. The sun settled at last, sinking past the horizon to burden the other half of the demonic world. Yowls and cries, the voices of monsters, filled the warm California night. Secure inside the building, Buffy ran at the aisles upon aisles of foodstuffs. Grabbing a bag of beef jerky, two bags of cheese doodles, and a cookie from the shelves, she gorged herself on processed food that never went rancid. Her stomach filled after two bites of jerky, but still she ate. Her cheeks bulged, covered with orange 'cheese' crumbs. Her fingers were covered in the sticky goo of orange 'cheese' product. Chocolate chunks fell onto the floor around her crossed legs.

Buffy's stomach lurched as she swallowed the remainder of the cookie, the warm chocolate swirling down her esophagus. Her insides quivered, and gooseflesh rose on the backs of her arms and legs. Buffy moaned, clutching her belly as she wobbled to her feet. Clutching at a bottle of water behind the fridge, the slayer dropped to her knees and heaved. Her throat burned with stomach acid as the meal splattered onto the cement floor in one partially digested mess. Tears tickled the corners of her eyes. After a moment, she gagged again, forcing another wad of vomit up her esophagus, over her tongue, and onto the floor. Tugging at her stomach with both hands, Buffy leaned her forehead against the cold cement ground, and tried to breathe.

"_But we don't even know what's out there!" Satsu retorted, slamming her fist into the plastic tabletop. The seven slayers that made up the leadership team had been sitting for hours in a dark little room, listening to the plan. Buffy sat at their head, squeezing the bridge of her nose to block the pounding pressure of a headache. "How can we stop what we don't understand?"_

"_We're slayers!" Renee replied, getting to her feet, the wheeled chair slamming into the wall. "It's what we do, isn't it? We fight! We slay! We save the world."_

"_You're both right," Faith frowned at the other end of the table, leaning her elbows on the arms of her chair. "We've never faced anything like this before. Some of us may die. But that's how it goes when you're a slayer. One girl dies and another rises."_

"_But we're also slayers," Buffy finished for her. "This is what we do. This is who we are. We stand up against evil, and we fight it with everything we have."_

"_But Buffy," Kylie frowned, "we've seen what happens. When we die, no one else rises to take our places. What do we do if the line ends here?"_

Orange-tinged saliva sprayed the floor as Buffy staggered to her feet, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. Walking around the pool of choked-up supper, the slayer leaned into the back door behind the palates. Outside, a demon wailed, its voice echoing in the night. The slayer pushed open the door and slid out into the night. Keeping her bony shoulders to the wall, Buffy edged out toward the intersection, listening to the cacophony of predatory screeches. Beyond the empty pumps, demons traveled slowly down the streets. Some carried weapons slung over their shoulders or dragging in their hands. Others wore duffel bags or wheeled suitcases. The corpse of a young woman dangled from a fraying rope, pulled by a moderately sized Polgara demon.

Her chest rose and fell as Buffy drew in a hurried breath. Clutching the stake tightly in her hand, Buffy ran swiftly across the gas station parking lot and out into the street. She slammed forcefully into the demon, shoving her knees against its chest. Razor sharp, knife-like horns slid out from pockets in its arms, responding to the sudden attack. The slayer moved quickly, thrusting the stake violently into the demon's neck. Overhead, the sky rumbled uneasily, the precursor to a storm. Beneath her hands, blood sprayed from the wound she'd created, staining her clothes and skin. Retrieving her weapon, Buffy bent down over the human corpse and lifted it into her arms. The shoulders and legs fell limply over her forearms. Around her, pairs of eyes stared, stunned, at the mess of arterial blood seeping along the asphalt.

"What do you even care!" A demon yelled out after her as Buffy continued across the street, disappearing into an alley.

"Doesn't even taste good, already dead," another shrugged, turning away from the Polgara corpse.

"Humans, they just don't get it," added a third demon in a deep baritone.


	5. Chapter 5

(All flashbacks are in _italics_)

**The Looking Glass**

**Chapter 5**

The ladder screeched painfully across the linoleum floor as Buffy dragged it toward the dripping ceiling hole she'd kicked open and fallen gracelessly through. Her backside throbbed as she reached up through the hole, clutching the shoulders of the corpse. It slid easily on the slick rooftop and tumbled down through the hole, smacking it's skull on the top bar of the ladder. The Slayer shuddered at the sound of cracking bone and ringing metal rungs. Gently and with as much care as she could muster, Buffy lugged the body into her arms and carried it across the room, dripping grayish rain drops on the floor.

She had dirty, matted red hair that surrounded a pale, heart shaped face. A sprinkling of freckles covered the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks. Her face and neck were scabbed in places, cuts and bruises surrounding her eyes and nose, the corner of her mouth.

"You were alive after the end," Buffy murmured, fingering the ratted cotton undershirt glued to her ribcage. She wiped her hand, still stained with demon blood, on the thigh of her jeans, and reached up to brush a few strands of hair behind her ear. "You were a survivor."

Buffy's eyes glazed, rapidly filling with tears she'd thought had dried up weeks ago. The soft pale face seemed to gaze up at her, accusing, blaming. Her body was strong once. She looked just like Willow.

_The moisture in her lips evaporated, leaving them chapped and split. The morning sun pleaded through a thick crimson cloud-cover, unleashing torrential rain upon the battlefield. Blood ran in rivulets from a delta at the crest of her shoulder. Pain radiated like the licking flames of a spreading fire storm across her back. Her legs threatened to give way, wobbling uneasily at the kneecap. Instead, the Slayer stood staring. _

_Thick, heavy drops of rain splattered their bodies, many of them twisted in various forms of agony. Some of their mouths had fallen open, stunned screams ringing silently from their throats. The sky rang with another roar of thunder, another halo of cloud-to-cloud lightning. Still, the Slayer's eyes scanned the blood and dirt, the mud that seeped between them._

_Faith stared up from a pile of contorted girls, her dark eyes staring blankly into the darkened sky. Streaks of still wet blood poured from her nostrils, stained her chin. A pool of sticky crimson gurgled around the back of her skull. A stake, sharp and ready, rested centimeters from her outstretched fingers. _

The mouth slackened and an abrupt cough expelled from the corpse. The lungs expanded, gagging suddenly and forcefully for air. Buffy fell backward, tumbling over against the check-out counter. The eyelids peeled back, the pupils fully dilated and staring straight ahead. She had blue irises, barely visible, a shining ring around a large black hole. Her tongue lolled from the corner of her mouth and the scent of rot and bacteria filled the store, circulating in the breathable air between the Slayer and her ward. Her voice wheezed as she stammered toward deliberate sound, a word of warning or comfort, a name, a home. The tongue, limp and discolored, flapped with effort. Buffy stretched out her hands, reaching for the first living soul she'd seen in weeks. Her fingers lashed tightly around the frozen fingers, the thin wrist with its echoing pulse.

"Tell her," the girl whispered hoarsely, her body stiffening as her voice died on the humid gas station air. The echo fell short, mid-beat. The tongue retreated back inside the mouth. The lips slammed shut, tucking the voice away. The eyes remained open, staring ahead. "I'll tell her," Buffy murmured, brushing her hand against the eyelids, "I'll find her, and I'll tell her."

With the utmost care, Buffy lifted the girl from the floor, sliding demon blood-stained forearms beneath her shoulders and knees. She seemed lighter now, as though the soul had weighed her down. She was limp again but not heavy, and her body remained stiff and brittle as the Slayer laid her gently down in the room behind the refrigerators. Inside the small dark room, Buffy unfolded a small canvas sheet used to cover the shelves while the employees painted the ceiling. This she draped over the girl, tucking the edges around her shoulders, her hips. Behind her, the door behind the palettes shook.

Scratching, like serrated knives attacking a chalkboard, echoed into the small cement room. The heavy wooden palettes wobbled against one another, making an eerie rattling noise.

"Not now," Buffy whispered, backing up against one wall, "I have to find her. I have to tell her."

"Should've stayed in hiding, girl," growled a wispy voice over her shoulder, hidden in the gray darkness of the mini mart. "Demons, they talk as they walk."

"Let me have her first. I haven't had hot flesh in weeks."

"You! Go around the back, let the boys in."

Buffy's eyes darted from one end of the small refrigerator room to the other, glancing at the four walls that contained her, the doorway into the market, the palettes covering the doors. The advancing team smelled of rats drenched in sewer scum, wet and dripping. These weren't the same creatures she'd seen on the battlefield. They weren't the vampires imbued with the power and violence of the First Evil. They were only a run of the mill half-breed demon, a creature that hadn't eaten real meat in weeks. Half-starved, half-mutated, sick with the poisoned blood of the deceased.

So why were her knees still shaking?

"You don't know what you're up against," Buffy whispered, restraining the quiver in her voice.

"Enlighten me," snarled their leader, stepping into a sliver of moonlight from the open hole in the ceiling.

"I'm the slayer," she mused, attempting whimsy.

"The slayer?" the vampire snorted before throwing his head back in hearty laughter. "The vampire slayer, eh?"

"You won't be laughing when I'm…"

"Stop." He smirked, cutting her off. He was closer now, his finger raised to silence her. His hands were gnarled, crisscrossed with empty blue veins. The skin was thin and filmy, gray like the soot-stained rain. Beneath the bare covering, his bright white bones shone.

"Proud slayer, the last of her kind. Just promise to beg. Maybe I'll kill you faster."

They surrounded her like a hunting party, edging her away from the back room, away from the body she'd sought to protect. The ladder beneath the dripping skylight wobbled against her ankle. Without thinking, Buffy scrambled up onto the roof, out into the leaky night. Lightning bolts bounced across the sky, some stretching out like fingers to spark against the skeletal remains of skyscrapers. Thunder echoed like human screams, the cries for help she couldn't answer. Vampire voices yowled on the street below. They'd surrounded the building, at least four hungry mouths at every wall. Inside her chest, her heart rattled. The agonized screams of slayers bounced around in her memories, tugging at her throat, pulling at her hair. These were the vampires who'd killed them, who'd slaughtered them mercilessly and left them to rot. These were the vampires who'd asked for the end of the world, and gotten it. They haunted her dreams and starred in her nightmares. And now they were keeping her away from…

"No." she grunted, stepping onto the corner of the roof, leaning out over the side to watch the crowd gather. "I'm the slayer. I don't run."

The driveway vibrated beneath her feet as she leapt down amongst them, throwing a firm punch as her leg wheeled around to toss away another. The boot caught, trapped in the twisted hands of a foe. The bones cracked as he twisted, lifting her into the air and throwing her several feet across the lot. Buffy stumbled to her feet as they surrounded her again. Some threw their heads back and cackled. Others slashed with handfuls of razor sharp fingernails, as long as the fingers themselves. The warm, heady scent of blood curled into the night air, like tendrils of smoke from a fresh fire. Buffy shoved her stake through the crowd, stabbing at an opponent. The weapon wouldn't penetrate and fell pathetically from her fingers to the ground. Weaponless, Buffy threw another punch, another swift kick. A hand crunched around her wrist and hurled her, again, like a doll. The wall of the gas station cracked, tossing her facedown on the ground.

"Have to…" Buffy mumbled as she stood again amongst the crowd of snarling, laughing demons. Her arms stretched out away from her, erratic jabs. Some connected against bony ribs, fleshless stomachs. Others reached out into the ether and fell back, useless. Her brain buzzed as her skull bent and twisted, the bone giving way in places. Blood spilled from the wound like a broken water mane. The sickly wet asphalt welled up around her face, filling up her sight. The world seemed to slow down, every hit and kick and strain like a dance step across a stage. Footsteps beat across the ground, quiet at first and then vaguely louder. There were yelps, growls.

_The blade fell heavily against the broken sidewalk, its steel ringing swallowed in the deafening silence accompanying the apocalypse. The stairs up to the house were still intact, the mailbox left sitting on its stained post. She'd picked up the mail Tuesday, and there hadn't been any since. The blue door lie buried beneath a layer of cement and brick. The walls gaped open, broken down in places, left standing in others. The tree over the front window wilted, drooping branches and dead leaves across the busted fireplace. The grass Dawn laid in, doing her homework, had browned and died. _

_She brushed damp strands of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ears. Fingers crusted in blood pressed against the whining door frame. Slivers of glass cracked beneath her boots. Brick and cement dust coated the blue carpeting where it wasn't smothered in housing material. Buffy tripped uneasily into the house, stumbling over the twisted carcass of the couch, the cracked remains of a table. Her knees gave out against a waist-high pile of brick and roof tiles. _

_Fingers stretched out of a hole in the rubble, reaching out toward her like a cry for help. Her brain screamed as she dug into the pile, throwing bricks haphazardly across the room. _

_Powdered with a layer of dust and grime, Buffy at last recovered his broken remains. He'd wrapped his arms around a picture frame. One eye stared up at her, vacant. The scar of another was muted pink, unhidden by an eye patch. Dawn's senior picture smiled over the curl of his forearm. _

The soft crackling of a pot-belly fire cast an orange glow over the Slayer. Warm red sheets cradled her head, bringing out the pale beauty of her pink skin. Above the folded edge of a comforter, her bare shoulders peeked. One had been purpled with the beginnings of a bruise, but the other had escaped the harm of battle. She murmured in slumber and turned on her side, her forehead creasing in response to pain. Wet blond hair piled limply around her face fell back against the pillow, revealing an ugly gash. Fingers of blood stained her face.

_Tears mixed with fresh dirt stained her face. Her knees and thighs were browned and damp. Beneath her fingernails, yet more dirt, pulled away with her hands, remained. She stood over him for what seemed like days, staring at the small mound that seemed an inadequate memorial. She'd buried them together, Xander and his Dawnie, embraced by a grave she'd never wanted to dig. The shroud of guilt weighed down upon her shoulders as she walked back to the house. _

_The rubble had been pushed aside, scattered into piles as she looked for them. Instead, on the overturned refrigerator, Buffy found a note duct-taped to the door. It was written in Giles' handwriting, urgent and thus almost illegible. Buffy leaned against the intact counter that surrounded the kitchen sink and unfolded the page torn from the back of Dawn's diary. _

_Buffy,_

_We couldn't wait. Something's started, but the books have no clues about what it is or how we can stop it. We have to leave. In order to keep everyone safe, I've split them up into small teams. I've made arrangements to meet up again at a secret location. I've sent Dawn with Willow. Xander and I will remain here for as long as we can. Buffy, this isn't the end. Just know that I'm proud of you and all that you've accomplished. I'm proud to have fought at your side all these years._

_Rupert Giles_

_The note fluttered from her fingers, dipping down between the shattered remains of the house in Cleveland. Buffy stumbled over the wreckage, her voice erupting in screams. She called for him over and over again. No answer. Her voice broke, gave out, and still she strained in silence. "Giles!" _


	6. Chapter 6

**_The Looking Glass_**

**Chapter 6**

(All flashbacks appear in _italics_)

The springs of the mattress squealed horribly as the slayer sat bolt upright, damp locks of hair slapping the back of her neck. Her throat was dry, hoarse from screaming. Eyes, itchy and red, jumped in their sockets as she took in the accommodations. The brick walls that enclosed her seemed to glow, radiant with the golden orange light of a piping hot fire inside an old iron stove. Sheets as red as blood were tangled loosely around her hips and legs. Buffy reached up with one scratched, raw hand to rub the blur from her vision. The darkness of the room seemed to close in when she moved her hand away again. The fingers brushed vaguely against the corners of a bandage. Pain, as if triggered by her faint memory, rushed up from every direction, throbbing along the temple and down the spine. A groan escaped her chapped lips, and the slayer slid off the edge of the bed, her feet smacking against the cold cement floor.

"Stake," she mumbled to herself in after thought, turning wildly back to the tousled bedding in search of her weapon. The sheets kinked and smoothed under her erratic touch, searching. The bed blurred, her hands blending into the bedding as though she'd dipped them in a pool. Buffy stumbled, yanking her hands back, looking down at them as though they might be stained a crimson hue. The door yawned open a few steps away. Perhaps her weapon lay beyond its mouth.

The slayer grunted as she shoved one foot forcefully in front of the next. The frame loomed, taunting her steps. In her difficult perception of the visual world, Buffy watched the doorway expand and contract, mocking her attempted exit. The slayer threw out an arm to grope for the frame and slammed painfully against it, misjudging the distance between her self and it. Pain shot through her, culminating in a black and blue shoulder. In the door, she shook her head, pushing away a blinding spot of pain, the strange red-stained vision that seemed to color her eyes.

A small Formica table sat to her right, surrounded by four matching chairs, all of them painted a pale blue. A refrigerator and a wall of cabinets completed a quaint kitchen. A well-worn sofa sat on the other side of the room, across from a chair and a wall of bookshelves. Several of the books had been pulled out, leaving dusty black holes like missing teeth. In the middle of the floor sat a simple, battery-operated radio. The soft melodic hum of white noise dribbled from its speakers.

Buffy tripped out of the doorway, turning away from the silence of the collected rooms. She had a stake to find, a world to protect. There was no use dillydallying in comfort where she could get used to the scenery. At the end of a dark hallway, under a faint spotlight of day, a lonely staircase wound around a hollow elevator shaft. She lurched toward it, taking a running stride into an unseen but quite solid mass hidden in the darkness. Buffy bounced backward, wobbling on unstable feet into a fighting stance. Her hands rose up in front of her, curled into fists. She straddled the floor unsteadily, waiting. Blood began to seep from the gauze square taped haphazardly to her forehead with adhesive bandages. It swirled in a stream along the side of her face.

Her opponent moved into the soft light of the sofa room, spread by the dancing flame of a kerosene lamp. He'd been roughed up by the apocalypse or the days thereafter. His human face was badly scarred. Soot collected around his nostrils, his ears, the corners of his mouth. A crop of dirty brown hair sprang up from his scalp and cascaded around his neck and ears. He lifted his hands, a slow and thoughtful movement, in front of his body. The palms, dirty and blistered, faced out to her. The fingers curled slightly. Buffy's eyes jumped from the raised hands to his marred face, and back again. The hallway swelled, and her stomach gurgled and groaned as though seasick. The slayer dragged back her arm, and shoved it forward. His chest seemed to contort around her hand for an instant, and then he was thrown back. The wall vibrated as he hit.

Behind her, a man's voice shouted her name. The slayer pivoted and threw another erratic, forceful punch, sprawling another body against the floor. The radio buckled and slid out beneath him, crashing into the back of the sofa. Buffy turned back toward the vacant hallway and scampered down it. She dragged herself up the staircase, each foot stuck fast as though seeping into quick sand. The stairs led up onto a higher floor, bathed in the uncovered spotlight of a street lamp. The unending night was still upon her. She couldn't have been out for long. Buffy shoved both hands against a crumbled doorway bleeding light into the elevator. The room behind it looked like every other room she'd seen since the end. Two of the four walls had been partially demolished. Chunks of cement cluttered the floor and the outlying sidewalks. Rungs of rusted steel rebar stretched from the remains like fingers amongst rubble. A single desk had been turned on its side like a shield. It was charred, blackened on one side, and the legs were shoved against an intact wall. The computer that had likely sat atop it once was no more than a melted paperweight, crumpled in upon its self and thrown pathetically on the floor. Shattered glass, which covered much of the floor, crunched beneath the soles of Buffy's boots.

Beyond the dismantled wall that fronted the office, Buffy could hear the yowling, crying horde. The barest touch of purple dawn had begun to taint the night sky. Strangely, though she faced out into the street, the exodus had no presence here. Their cries were farther out, distanced from this place. Buffy bent down in the broken frame of a former window, holding one hand feebly against her blood-soaked bandage. She sorted through the fragments of glass and lifted from that pile a large wedge. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the glass stake, piercing her dirty skin. She stood slowly, dropping the hand on her head for balance.

He hadn't been standing there before, a dark human shadow in front of an intact wall. A door stood open behind him, as though he'd just come through it, en route to another place. In the radiant spotlight, she could see that his arms were full of tin cans. Even the labels were visible, and Buffy salivated when she made out a few. There were Spaghetti O's and chicken soup, along with stewed tomatoes and green beans. Slowly her red-tinted gaze rose back to his face, his eyes slit against the light. She raised the wedge of glass like a knife, hesitating.

He watched her stand as he emerged from the darkness of the hallway, standing in the glow of artificial sunlight. The scent of blood was ripe and pure, and as she turned to face him, he could see why. A thick trail of blood was sliding down her face, pooling briefly in the hollow dip of her collarbone. A second stream had dripped down over her eyebrow, and one of her eyes was stained red. The cans fell instantly from his arms, clanging heavily on the dusty wooden floor. He stepped toward her cautiously, noticing the glint of reflected light in the piece of glass she wielded. She'd gripped it so tightly that rivulets of blood bubbled around the sharp edges. It was difficult to tell whether she noticed the pain. Her knees shook as he approached, and in her chest, he could hear her heart beating with inhuman rapidity. The scent of terror was intoxicating.

The glass dropped, shattering as it hit the floor. Buffy's parched lips parted slowly, her hoarse voice tripping over the words she tried to form.

"Angel?"

Her knees wobbled again, and the vibration of instability washed over her like a crashing wave. The legs gave out, and her eyelids collapsed, shutting out the spotlight. Her hands fell against her sides, and she fainted. Angel's arms stretched out suddenly, catching the slayer as she dropped limply toward the ground.

_She stood over him for the last time, the chain of a silver cross wrapped around her fingers. The grass buckled as she knelt down beside the grave, her fingers digging into the damp soil. Buffy scooped away a handful of fresh dirt, squeezing it into a ball. The cross glinted in the afternoon sunlight, a memory of times that had long since passed. The cross fell down along its chain as she held it out over the hole and dropped it delicately upon the dirt. Tears welled in her eyes as she dumped the ball of soil back upon the grave, and patted it with both hands. _

_She stood with effort, clutching the stake against her body like a shield. The short cement staircase led her back out onto the street, leading her away from the wilted house. The paved sidewalk was cracked in some places, torn up in others. She lifted her feet to avoid a perilous chunk threatening to trip her. The house faded into the distance, and Buffy Summers never looked back. _


	7. Chapter 7

**The Looking Glass**

**Chapter 7**

(Flashbacks in _italics_)

He scraped the utensil against the edges of the bowl, swirling the thin red sauce like a funnel cloud. Connor lifted his hand, watching the soup dribble around the edges of the spoon and drip back into the bowl. It splashed, rippling the surface. A chunk of pasta shaped like an 'o' plopped to the surface, floating across the sea of tomato-scented mush.

"Appetizing," Wesley groaned. He poked at his own meal, a can of green beans so old they'd begun to form one giant, puke-green bean. Across from him, Buffy stared down at her own bowl of spaghetti soup with tomato flavoring. Her spoon still sat on the table, untouched.

"There's something lacking in the nutritional value of a post-apocalyptic diet," the slayer mumbled, staring into Angel's mug of cold pigeon's blood.

"But it's nice to hear that the carnage and mayhem hasn't led to a loss of your sense of humor." Wesley replied, scooping another spoonful of liquid bean into his mouth. His lips scrunched together under a mustache of stubble.

Angel glanced up into her face as he wrapped a hand around the handle of his mug. She may not have lost her ability to pun in the most inappropriate situations, but it was obvious that the slayer was missing a piece of her humanity. Her once bright green eyes seemed vacant, dispirited, and lifeless. Even in the midst of her joke, her mouth remained turned down; her lips dry and chapped from exposure. Her skin was nearly as dry, tinged a permanent shade of sickly, sooty grey, and heavily scented with the sour musk of fear. Beside her, Angel looked almost healthy. Unlike the mutated vampires that hunted amongst the demon horde, Angel's flesh retained a pale porcelain glow. Certainly the pickings had been slimmer since the End, but vermin still seemed to thrive in the dingy roosts of Los Angeles.

"So, what brought you to L.A.?" Connor asked, wiping a fleck of tomato sauce from a strip of hair sprouting on his chin. "Hopefully it wasn't the food."

"I don't really know," Buffy replied, staring down into her soup again, as though it might hold the answers. "I don't even know…where we are."

"We're in the basement of my old office," Angel began, sitting back in the pale blue Formica chair. "When the End came, we were holed up in an old hotel across town, the Hyperion. There was an earthquake, the big one. The hotel couldn't take it, not with the storms that hit."

Buffy nodded beside him, remembering a series of violent electrical storms that descended from the treacherous clouds still hanging in part over the cities.

"Gunn died when the hotel came down, buried in one of the sewer access tunnels. We lost Spike around the same time. He disappeared in the rubble, and we assumed…"

"Illyria fled when the horde started coming through," Wesley sighed into his tin can. He closed his eyes and removed his glasses with a trembling hand.

"And Cordy…" Connor finished, looking across the table into his father's eyes. Angel dropped his chin to stare at the floor. "Cordy passed away a few weeks before it started. She had a…a vision. But we weren't able to really decipher it."

The chairs groaned as Connor and Wesley pushed back from the table. Wesley mumbled under his breath, complaining about a lack of sleep, and followed Connor down the dark hall past the elevator shaft. A moment later, a door latch clicked against its frame, followed shortly by a second similar sound. Angel lifted his mug silently from the table and pressed it to his lips, pouring a bit of the bitter blood down his throat.

"We didn't know anything," Buffy began, holding up her head between her hands, her elbows resting on the table. Bits of blond hair stuck out between her fingers. "There were no books on the subject, no prophecies. This was the third time we faced It, and we lost. Willow and I tried to formulate a plan, to think outside the box. We tried to sort out a vision quest, into one of the prophecy dreams I had. You remember them? I kept seeing it…for weeks I dreamed of nothing else. Carnage. Death. Hundreds of slayers falling down where they stood. In the dream, we spoke to them, the slayers of the past, of the present. They told us we didn't have a chance if we couldn't engage in hand to hand, right there on the field with It.

What else was I supposed to do? What else could I do? Giles and the others, they researched for days, weeks without sleep, looking for another answer. And I trained them. I worked them to the bone. I swear they were crying mutiny. Willow and Giles, they even went to the oracles, to the Powers that Be. We'd never been there before, never had to seek them out. They told us we'd messed with the natural order, that when the last girl died, the line of slayers would end. No matter what, we were going to lose."

The Formica chair squealed against the floor as Buffy got abruptly to her feet. She stood still behind the table, her hands hanging limply at her sides. Her forcefully beating heart shoved blood through her system of veins, and a faint redness bubbled into the sallow color of her skin. A few feet away, Angel quietly stood, watching her apprehensively.

"They all died. I watched every one of them die."

"_But we'll spare you." It cackled, crossing it's arms over it's chest. It had her smile, her pouty pink lips. A mane of golden blond curls dipped around it's shoulders, beautiful and clean. It wore her clothes, not covered in blood nor torn by her scuffles. It was her, normal and perfect. _

"_We'll spare you. Go on living, Slayer. Go on striking…fear…in the hearts of demons." The First Evil grinned, mocking her. _

"But I'm the one afraid."

Buffy trembled where she stood, embracing herself at the chest as though suddenly cold. Angel moved quickly around the table, pulling the slayer into his arms. Gently, he pulled her cheek against his chest, resting her bandaged head upon his heart. Her muscles were tight under his hands, as though she were restraining herself, holding back her instinct to fight.

"There's more," she whispered, tucking the cozy blanket around her shoulders. The bed springs echoed quietly as she squeezed tighter into Angel's embrace.

"I'm listening," he replied, stroking her hair.

"Dawn…" she choked, coughing on the name. It had been the first time she'd spoken it aloud since before the End had come. "She's missing. And Willow, and Giles."

"We'll find them," Angel frowned, nudging her head up with his shoulder. Her eyes were dark and wet, full of anxiety, shadowed with lack of sleep. "We'll find all of them."

"No." Buffy muttered with a cold succinctness. "Xander's dead."

--

Buffy sat uneasily on the edge of a chair, fingering the sharp point of the stake she'd carried since she'd left home. The kerosene lamps had been extinguished, and the room was mostly dark. A short stream of orange light filtered over the bedroom threshold where she'd awakened only a day earlier. The shadows of Angel's legs broke the beam as he shuffled around the corner of his bed, reaching for clothes in a chest of drawers.

"It's time," Wesley grunted as he ran down the stairs and stalked across the empty sitting room, stopping to lift the strap of a duffel bag over his shoulder. Connor emerged from the dark hallway, a backpack slung over his shoulders, and a sword clutched in one hand. Angel was the last to emerge, darkness following him out of the bedroom as he blew out the stove's fire.

Buffy followed them down a short set of cement stairs and into the sewer access tunnel. The pipes smelled strongly of sulfur, residue from the storms that had seeped into the city water supply. The drains were mostly empty now, and for the first time, Buffy's boots didn't splash through ankle-deep sewage.

"Come on! We need to move faster." Wesley called out from ten feet ahead, turning a corner. His feet echoed loudly through the empty pipes. Connor shoved his sword through the straps on his backpack and ran faster down the sewer, followed closely by Buffy and Angel. The scent of salt and sea mixed with the sulfuric residue, creating an even more unpleasant smell.

Connor poked his head out of the manhole and flicked his gaze in either direction. The cries of the exodus hung in the air like the faintness of Monday morning traffic, but the flow of their march had no yet reached the ocean. Quickly and quietly, the foursome scrambled out of the tunnels and onto the asphalt. Buffy thrust a boot heavily against the locked entrance onto the dock. It sprang open with little effort and swung loudly against the chain link fence. Together they descended, down a flight of stairs and onto the floating concrete dock.

Several of the boats had disappeared, taken by their human or demon masters to parts unknown. Several more had sunk to the bottom of the marina, and ten feet of mast stuck up at an odd angle from a slip near the end. Wesley led them out to one of the only intact vessels remaining. He'd lined the bow of the ship with fluorescent orange gas cans, and he'd spread out a map of the marina on a short table in the middle of the covered cockpit.

"There's blood and food below, blankets and life jackets, and some of the better demon volumes. We'd best get going if we want to avoid being seen, or caught, by the horde." Wesley suggested, following the makeshift crew aboard.

"We'll sail through the night," Angel muttered, looking down at the map as the boat drifted out of its slip. He slung his hand over the wheel, adjusting the rudder's alignment. "Wes and Connor, you'll take the day shift."

"And you're sure she's there?" Connor asked, looking warily down the steps into the main cabin.

"If I know Willow," Buffy mumbled, her eyes fixed on the ocean spreading out beyond the breakers. "She'll take Dawn to the place she feels safest."

"And that is?"

"The home of her coven, in England."

* * *

_So concludes "The Looking Glass". This story will resume in a second part called "Down the Rabbit Hole." Are you disappointed by the cliffhanger ending? Just think of it as the half-season break! Buffy the Vampire Slayer will resume with "Down the Rabbit Hole" soon. _


End file.
